Valentines Cake (Only a month late)

Right before Valentine’s Day I posted that I was asked to make two cakes but that I just didn’t know how to decorate them. When it cake down to it, I STILL just could not decide on a decoration and chose to focus on the flavor.

Death By ChocolateI made two different types of cake, dark chocolate and a red colored vanilla and coffee cake. I then mixed up a small batch of ganache that I made with a mix of milk and dark chocolate, heavy cream, and some coffee for flavoring. For the filling I made my traditional Swiss buttercream and flavored it with dark chocolate and a little bit of caramel. �

I layered the cake together, first starting with a chocolate cake layer, a ganache layer, butter cream, and then the red vanilla cake. I only put ganache on the bottom layer and then again on the second from the top so that it would not be too overwhelming. I wanted to be able to show you a picture of what the cake looked like sliced, but both cakes were eaten so quickly that I didn’t even get a chance to eat some myself!

Hearts, hearts, and heartsAfter frosting the cake and letting it cool, I decided the cake would taste the best if I made a chocolate glaze for it. When I glazed the cakes I did not have the glaze itself hot enough so it ended up being a bit ‘drippy’ looking on the side, but I don’t think anyone was bothered by the chocolate being thick on the sides.

I decided the best look would just to be to cover it with hearts and leave it simple. I mixed up several different colors, cut out hearts of varying sizes, and randomly placed them around the cake. It may be a bit boring, but everyone loved the cakes; which in the end is all that matters!